


if this love only exists in my dreams

by plinys



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Dreams and Nightmares, Episode Tag, F/F, Femslash February, Femslash February 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 15:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13767474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: Five times Zari can't sleep. (An Episode Tag to "Here I Go Again")





	if this love only exists in my dreams

1

She wakes with a gasp darting up from the bed. 

Her heart pounding in her chest, the faint feeling of fire  _ like an explosion  _ lingering on her skin, all too real tears lingering at the corners of her eyes. It takes Zari a moment to call down. To regulate her breathing and remember where she was. Not on the run, not in 2042, not fighting to survive - she was just here, safe and sound in her bunk on the Waverider. 

Zari lets out a rush of air, a half held in breath, before slumping back in her sheets. 

The worst thing was, the nightmare wasn’t even one of her usual, it wasn’t losing her family or it wasn’t being on the run from Argus. No, it was that  _ damn time loop _ . 

The one that wasn’t even real. 

“Fucking, Gideon,” Zari mumbles under her breath.

“Now now, that’s not very nice, Miss Tomaz.” 

Her eyes dart to the ceiling at the sound of Gideon’s voice, because of course she would be listening in, she was always listening in. Something that Zari was now very much aware of seeing as Gideon had known enough about literally everyone to populate the the time loop Zari had been trapped in.

“This is your fault, I hope you know that,” Zari had meant to sound threatening, but it comes off weak, because  _ technically  _ she couldn’t fault Gideon. It had been her program that was running through her own mind, her mistake that led to being hit with a face full of time fuel and knocked out, her thoughts of leaving the ship that had caused the whole situation to become necessary in the first place.

And it had been worth it. What she learned about the team and herself during her time in the loop was more than worth it. She wouldn’t take that back, not for anything. 

But still…

Zari could do without the nightmares. 

“I don’t mean that,” she says, after a moment, when she realized that no response from Gideon had come.

The AI shockingly silent for once. 

“I mean, I sort of do, but-”

“Good night, Miss Tomaz.” 

There was something final about the AI’s tone. Not their usual fun banter, but Zari is too tired to focus on it. Too many bad dreams in her head. Too much lingering tiredness from the last mission weighing heavy on her body.

Heavy enough that Zari hopes if she lays down again she might be blessed with a dreamless night for at least a little.

She lays back down in bed, hoping for just that, but not before replying back to a comment that seems to have been a lifetime ago rather than moments before. “Night, Gideon.” 

  
  


2

She can’t sleep.

A recurring trend at this point.

And to be fair, they were technically in the temporal zone, so designated sleeping times really didn’t matter. Sure, the rest of the team might have been asleep, but that just meant that the kitchen was open for her exclusive use. 

Something that Zari was certainly not going to miss a chance to take advantage of. 

“Gideon,” Zari calls out. 

Waiting, just a second until the AI she knows is always waiting and watching responds, “Yes, Miss Tomaz?”

It’s silly that that brings a little smile to her face. Then again, she had Gideon had grown a little closer as of late, ever since the time loop, maybe they could even be considered  _ friends  _ now. Though Zari wasn’t really ready to ask if they’d finally moved beyond the acquaintances stage.

“Surprise me?”

She’s tried this before, a few times. When she was too tired to decide between a familiar favorite or something new that they hadn’t had in 2042. Of course, normally this would lead Gideon to grumbling and insisting that Zari was more than able to use the fabricator on her own. 

Except this time she doesn’t.

This time a moment later the fabricator fires up without Zari having to touch a single button. 

A plate of donuts appearing a moment later, looking delicious and exactly what Zari had wanted without even knowing it, “Are these jelly filled kind?”

“Are there any other kind?”

  
  


3

She wakes with a gasp, not from a nightmare, but from something else. 

Something that Zari could remember with clarity even upon waking. It’s been awhile since she’s had a dream quite light that. One that made it feel like her whole body was on fire, not from pain, but from  _ pleasure.  _

She can still feel it if she slips her eyes shut. She tries, focusing on the ghost of lips on her hand, on fingers inside of her, on a body pressed close to her own, on a voice that had been saying her name, guiding her through it, a  _ familiar  _ voice.

One a little bit too familiar.

Zari lets out a little laugh, running her hand through her hair, pushing it back and away from her face - trying not to remember the dream which seems so clear, of a different set of hands tangled in her hair while she - “Fuck.” 

“It seemed like was a nice dream,” Gideon’s voice comes, in what is probably meant to be a faux-innocent tone, but Zari knows better. 

Knows that there’s nothing innocent about the Waverider’s AI.

Knows that her own thoughts about Gideon were far from innocent. 

Knows that Gideon is probably now well aware of that, if she hadn’t been before. 

“You can see our dreams, can’t you,” Zari asks, feeling the slight hint of embarrassment burn the back of her neck. Though her body is already flushed and warm from the dream that she had been having moments before.

Gideon’s reply is too quick, and just a hint too smut, “It’s alright, Miss Tomaz, many people find me attractive.” 

“I can’t control my sleeping mind, you perv.”

  
  


4

“You can stop dimming the lights, I’m not tired,” Zari insists.

Even though she is.

Even though she’s been struggling to keep her eyes open for a while. 

Even though the screen of the game that she’s playing has been getting harder and harder to focus on with each passing moment. 

“My readings of your body would suggest otherwise.” 

Zari pauses her game. Staring at the still slightly blurry screen before saying, “Are you monitoring my tiredness levels now?”

“I monitor everything,” Gideon reminds her, which Zari did know. “It’s too keep you safe.” 

_ You,  _ not  _ the crew _ .

The distinction seems important, and if Zari wasn’t so tired she would probably focus on that. But at the moment she’s having a hard time focusing on anything. 

It’s easier to joke than to feel  _ touched  _ or some nonsense like that. 

“Weirdo,” Zari scoffs. Turning the game back on. 

Which in turn results in Gideon shutting off the lights completely, not bothering to play fair at all. Thankfully Zari has enough muscle memory when it comes to the controller that she doesn’t even technically need to be able to see more than the screen in front of her to play her game.

“You do realize I could shut that off too.”

Fucking computers. 

Zari lets out a sigh.

Because there’s concern in Gideon’s voice, and she’s not certain since when has she warranted concern, but it makes Zari feel the littlest bit bad about staying up so late. 

“Just one more round, I promise.” 

“Just one more.”

  
  


5

She’s getting sick of the nightmares at this point.

Sick of a lot of things, but  _ this  _ in particular. 

It was her brother again, which she wasn’t certain if that made it better or worse.

“Miss Tomaz,” the sound of Gideon’s voice, concerned before Zari could even say anything is a surprise.

Such that she jolts up, knocking her head on the wall behind her bed. Shock coursing through her veins, even though she knows exactly where she is. Even though there’s no reason for this. 

“Sorry to startle you.” 

“No, it’s-” Zari hisses out, “It’s fine, Gideon. Just a bad dream. I’m fine.”

She’s not fine.

But it’s easier to say she is. 

Easy to pretend. 

“I know,” Gideon says, “That’s why I woke you up.” 

“You woke me up,” Zari says, slow as if considering it. 

But then she supposed it did make sense, the nightmare hadn’t been finished, hadn’t been at its worst when Zari had felt herself being pulled out of it. 

There’s something like concern in the AI’s voice when she says, “I have mentioned before that I am able to monitor dreams?”

Right, she had mentioned that before.

And to be honest, it really wasn’t surprising. 

What couldn’t Gideon monitor. 

If Zari was being honest, for once she was a little happy for Gideon’s constant monitoring. 

Even if it meant Gideon knowing just how much she was hurting. 

“Yeah, I - Thank you, Gideon.” 

“My pleasure, Miss Tomaz,” Gideon replies, “If you’d like I could play some soothing music. It always helped Captain Hunter when he had his nightmares.”

As soon as she says it, the music starts up, slow and soft, a piano track, distant background noise that she can focus on instead of the images that had been plastered on her eyelids moments before. 

It’s nice.

Soothing, as Gideon has said. 

Zari settles back down in her bed, determined to at least try to sleep a little longer, “And here I was thinking that I was special.”

“Oh, that you certainly are.”

  
  


+1

It’s a little bit impulsive, and a little bit reckless.

But then again, the rest of the team had left her behind and if they hadn’t wanted her to be impulsive they shouldn’t have taken they person was was eighty percent of Zari’s impulse control away.

The only one that had been left was Gideon and well…

“Hey, you” Zari says, looking at the woman across from her.

A part of her knows this isn’t entirely real. 

That her body is resting in the MedBay waiting for her to return back to the real world when the team will inevitably trip her proximity alarms after returning from the mission. That she’s not really sitting here on the edge of a bed that looked too big for just one person in a room surrounded by computer screens and digital layouts. That this place, where they  _ are,  _ is something of Gideon’s own making. 

A bigger part of her doesn’t care.

Not when Gideon replies, “Hello, Miss Tomaz,” back at her, looking just as beautiful as Zari had remembered her being in all of her dreams. Maybe even more beautiful, if that was even possible. 

“Can I kiss you?”

“I wouldn’t have invited you here if I wasn’t under the impression that was the plan.”

Gideon sounds smug as usual, but this time there’s a facial expression to go with it. 

An adorable one. 

She probably has a good hour or two before the team came back and she had to wake up, Zari decides to make the most of the moment. 

So she kisses that smug look off of Gideon’s face, and keeps kissing her, ignoring the fact that she ever has to wake up from this most wonderful dream. 

  
  
  



End file.
